The UK’s Automated Ships Ltd (an M Subs Ltd subsidiary) and Norway’s Kongsberg Maritime have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to build the world’s first unmanned and fully-automated vessel for offshore operations. In January 2017, Automated Ships Ltd will contract the ‘Hrönn’, which will be designed and built in Norway in cooperation with KONGSBERG. Sea trials will take place in Norway’s newly designated automated vessel test bed in the Trondheim fjord and will be conducted under the auspices of DNV GL and the Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA). The Hrönn will ultimately be classed and flagged, respectively.

A new drone is causing waves. This one takes you to depths scuba divers can't reach and makes explorers of us all. Trident is an underwater drone that travels with the ease of one above land and is making a splash in the underwater world of exploration and recreation.

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Shell and its joint venture partners, Pavilion Energy and Ophir Energy, announced today the start of its drilling programme covering two wells in Block 1 and 4, located in the Mafia Deep basin off Tanzania. The rig supporting the programme – the Noble Globe Trotter 2 – is expected to commence operations towards the end of October 2016 and will be drilling in waters up to 2300 metres deep.

Oceaneering informed it has appointed Jon Erik Reinhardsen to its board of directors. Reinhardsen is currently the president and chief executive officer of marine geophysical company, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), positions he has held since April 2008.

A woman from Yueqing, a city in east China's Zhejiang Province, recently became the first female engineering-certified diver in the country after she was granted a license by the profession's national authoritative body.

A luxury resort on the south shore of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands recently stabilized a 300-foot long seawater intake pipeline using SlingBag® from QUIKRETE® placed by Logan Diving & Salvage. Designed to feed the HVAC chillers on the resort, the existing underwater intake pipeline was less stable than expected when original installed and became a potential hazard to the natural habitat. Logan Diving & Salvage placed more than 9,400 60-pound rip rap burlap bags of 3-in-1 sand/cement delivered in nearly 170 SlingBags to successfully stabilize the intake pipeline.

After the Patty AJ capsized in March, and 6-year-old Isaiah Metzger nearly drowned in August, a name kept being repeated: Bob Hood, the rescue and recovery diver from the Bandon Dive Team. Locals call him a hero, but when Hood got into this job, he never imagined it would become what it has, reported The World.

EPA enforcement is becoming a more prevalent issue for vessels importing into the U.S. This has been in the regulations for a while but has rarely been enforced. Before a few weeks ago we had only been asked two or three times in 15 years for the EPA conformity of the engines in a boat.
Within the last month U.S. Customs and Border Protection has started requesting this on a regular basis and in Miami, Customs is requiring the WPA 3520-21 Engine declaration form be submitted at the time the importation is filed or they will not accept the entry.